


Waking Up To Reality

by Mix Stitch (Synph)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Background Relationships, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Healing, Humor, Injury, Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-11
Updated: 2015-12-11
Packaged: 2018-05-06 05:06:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5404115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Synph/pseuds/Mix%20Stitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after the events of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/5292008">The World Is On Fire</a>, Isaac wakes up to gaps in his memory and a sour taste in his mouth.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Waking Up To Reality

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tristen84](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tristen84/gifts).



> Another commission for the fantastic tristen84! This is a direct sequel to their last commission! Yay!

Isaac wakes to a pounding headache and a faintly sour taste in his mouth that he doesn't want to think about for too long. Sitting up, Isaac isn't surprised that he's still in the living room of Derek's safehouse. The pull-out bed that he's sleeping on is a bit of a mystery, but that's mostly because he doesn't remember getting on it.

But to be fair, Isaac doesn't remember much of the previous night. His memories seem to blur like rain on a window, skittering away when he tries to bring them back. When he squints, head throbbing hard enough that he has to raise one hand to his forehead, he can almost remember. He knows that they went into Tamsin's murder-house and that something happened while they were there. He remembers dropping to the floor and then at a seemingly later point in time, drinking soup from a mug half as big as his head.

But there are gaps.

Lots of gaps.

Isaac inhales slowly, filtering the scents that he picks up and then filing them away into neat mental categories. He can smell Scott and Stiles in the room even though he's alone now. Those scents are fresh and familiar, but there's something else. Something that Isaac doesn't like on instinct, but that he can't quite verbalize.

The stairs creak and Isaac freezes, still everywhere except for where his claws press out of his fingers. That part is instinctual. It's something that just comes with being a werewolf like the shift of his eyes to gleaming gold or the way that he can't help but smell _everything_.

When Isaac breathes in deeply, he can smell a mix of soap and skin that is unique. No two people smell the same, not unless they live a lot more closely than most people do, and so when Stiles bounds down the last couple of stairs and then skids to a stop on the landing, Isaac greets him with a tight smile curving up his lips.

"You're a – awake," Stiles blurts out, eyes widening in a way that makes Isaac frown. He glances back and forth between the stairs and where Isaac sits on the pull-out, blankets strewn everywhere. "Do you want something to eat or help getting to the bathroom? You were pretty out of it for most of the night."

Isaac shakes his head. "I'm not hungry."

He can get away with not telling the truth because Stiles can't smell it when he hesitates on the words in his lie or hear the faint gnawing grumble of his stomach above the muted snap and crackle of the logs in the fireplace. If Scott were here –

"Where's Scott?" Isaac asks a moment later when he realizes that he only can hear Stiles' heartbeat in the house.

Stiles shrugs and then winces, surreptitiously raising one hand to rub at his left shoulder until some of the tension on his face eases. "McDonald's I think. We ran out of edible food around dawn and he wanted to get you something to eat in case you woke up hungry or Braeden decided to handle the Tamsin thing personally."

Isaac opens his mouth and then closes it without saying anything else for the moment. He doesn't remember much. Certainly not eating the safehouse's store of food.

"What happened last night?" Isaac eventually asks.

At that, Stiles' face falls. There's no other word to describe the haunted look that settles on his face or the way that a mix of sadness and anxiety leaches into his normally familiar scent.

"Tamsin happened," Stiles bites out, face turning to one side. "She had a trap in her house that pumped you full of wolfsbane. You've been in and out of it all night." Stiles shakes his head. "It's been – it's been _bad_."

Isaac stills, torn between wanting to know more and wanting to know nothing at all. He settles for pulling the sheets on the pull out mattress tighter around his body as he watches Stiles give into the natural (for him) instinct to pace in tight circles around what parts of the room he can. Stiles doesn't smell fearful, only weary in a way that makes Isaac genuinely worry for the other member of his pack, and after a while, even that eases down.

"Are you sure that you want to know what happened?" Stiles asks.

Isaac doesn't hesitate. He nods and then glances up at Stiles.

"Yes," he says. "I think I need to find out."

Stiles' breath blows out of his mouth in an overdramatic sigh. He comes closer to the bed and drops down on the end of the mattress hard enough to make the bed roil underneath his weight until Isaac's stomach gurgles with a noise that most certainly _isn't_ from hunger. At the sight of Isaac clutching at the nearest arm of the couch and trying so hard not to give into his urge to be thoroughly and intensely sick all over the sheets from that sort of movement, Stiles' muscles tense.

"Aw, crap. Isaac, I'm so sorry," Stiles blurts out. "I should've remembered that you'd been sick all night." Keeping his voice low and his sentences at a slower pace for a change, Stiles moves a bit more carefully on the bed until he can face Isaac. "Tamsin's wolfsbane really did a number on you."

Isaac doesn't like the sound of that.

Shifting backwards until he's pressed up against the couch, Isaac crosses his arms over his chest. "Did I – do anything?"

"No," Stiles says quickly. "You were sick for most of the night, but you didn't hurt anyone and you didn't hurt yourself. We think that Tamsin used a slightly different blend of wolfsbane because you spent more time asleep than anything. It wasn't a good sleep, not even _close_ , but at least you got to rest in between the worst of it."

"And what would that be?" Isaac knows when his eyes shift to gold. He watches Stiles jerk a little on instinct, the kind of thing that humans do around their kind even when they know better. The kneejerk reaction makes Isaac frown as cold sweat prickles along the nape of his neck. "I did something, Stiles. I know it. So just _tell_ me!"

Stiles throws his hands up in front of him. "Okay, okay," he mutters, clearly exasperated. "One of the side effects from the wolfsbane was hallucinations."

"Hallucinations?" Isaac doesn't remember any –

The nightmares.

"Hm?"

At Stiles' inquisitive murmur, Isaac glances up at him.

"What?" Isaac says with an edge to his voice.

Stiles shrugs. "You said something about nightmares?"

Isaac wavers, torn between confessing the truth and merely brushing it off. After a moment of thought, he decides to come clean.

"I thought I had been dreaming," Isaac admits. "I kept seeing him and he kept hurting me, blaming me for everything from my brother's death to Jackson hunting him down and killing him. It was hell. I just thought that I was asleep, but –" Isaac shudders at the memories. "I wasn't?"

Stiles shakes his head, looking solemn.

"Sort of, but not really. Scott's been through that kind of wolfsbane poisoning and he said that it's like a waking dream. You can't do anything to stop it and your mind swears that you're in the middle of the worst moments of your life all over again." Stiles reaches out as if to brush his fingers over where Isaac's bare foot juts out from underneath the blanket and then pauses. "But don't worry too much because we took good care of you."

Isaac feels his mouth quirk with a slight smile. "You did, huh?"

"Hey, I made you soup from scratch," Stiles says. "And Stiles cleaned you up when things got really bad. You can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but you're our pain in the ass. By the time we're done with her, Tamsin is going to wish that she'd turned herself in back when Papa Argent first went out to collect her."

There's a chill in Stiles' voice that makes Isaac grin. Maybe Scott and his new pack don't kill, maybe they never will. Their desire to keep from crossing that boundary doesn't mean that someone like Tamsin, who actually takes pleasure in hurting people, will get away with the horrible things that she's done.

"If Braeden's coming up here, Tamsin might not make it back to Beacon Hills," Isaac points out with his smile taking on a notably wry note. "You'd think that she was my big sister with how she constantly keeps riding in to save me."

"Hey," Stiles points out with a sunny smile settling on his lips. "You could do a lot worse in the surrogate sister department than a badass biker with the ability and desire to hurt people who've hurt you. Braeden's good to have around in a pinch and she'd actually kill for you if she had to."

That earns Stiles a shaky smile.

"She would, wouldn't she?" Isaac muses.

Stiles nods. "She would," he confirms before rising carefully to his feet. "Which is why you should let me help you to the bathroom so you're good and clean before she shows up here. If she comes back to see you looking like death warmed over, we might not even have a chance to strategize before she goes and blows Tamsin right off the map."

The two of them share a look. Unsaid is the fact that their lives would be a lot simpler if Tamsin simply died before she was able to hurt anyone else. She was like Kate Argent but deadlier and that's saying lot, all things considered.

"Some people just shouldn't get second chances," Isaac mutters. He swings his legs over the closest side of the bed and then forces himself to stand. The room swims, colors blurring into a haze that makes Isaac uncomfortably aware of the headache he'd been ignoring during his conversation with Stiles. Isaac reaches out and thankfully, his fingers find Stiles' arm rather than empty air.

Stiles says nothing as he helps Isaac stand and then shuffle over to a room that turns out to be a tiny bathroom of to the side of the living room. He smells… focused, and when Isaac dares to glance at him, his nose is wrinkled with concentration.

"You're not going to be able to shower without falling over for a while," Stiles says eventually. "I know it's a little weird, but Scott said that a bath would help you heal a little faster." He hesitates. "Do you need me to stay and help?"

Isaac feels his stomach clench. "No," Isaac quickly gets out. "I'll be fine. You can wait outside though." He tries and fails to meet Stiles' gaze, too torn up over how vulnerable he's been in front of his friends. "I promise, I'll try to make noise if I fall over or something."

Stiles balks, obviously not sure if he should say or do anything more. "Are you sure?"

"I can handle this," Isaac snaps. He regrets the words and his tone a moment later. "I mean… Thanks. But I really need to do this on my own. I promise I won't die on your watch or anything like that."

~

By the time that Isaac manages to drag himself from the bath, there are two more heartbeats in the safehouse. He recognizes both distinct patterns as well as the scents that trickle over to his vantage point.

Scott and Braeden.

When Isaac opens the bathroom door, he glances down to see a fresh change of clothing folded up on the floor. The clothes must be from one of their stashes because both the Columbia University shirt and sweatpants are slightly too big for him. These clothes then, Isaac thinks as he stares at his wan face in the mirror, must have belonged to Derek at one point. Isaac catches himself making a face in the mirror and then smiles.

Scott _had_ been right about the bath.

Isaac feels much better in the aftermath, able to stand up on his own even if he can't imagine fighting another werewolf -- or even a human like Stiles. Once he eats, he's sure to feel much better.

"It took you long enough," Braeden says, lips curving up with a warm smile once Isaac is back out in the main part of the safehouse. Braeden stands up from her chair in the dining room and crosses the floor to stand in front of Isaac. Shorter than him by several inches, Braeden is slight but strong. When she reaches out to pull Isaac into a tight hug that makes his ribs protest, Isaac has no hope of escaping.

"You drove all the way up from Beacon Hills?" Isaac asks.

Braeden shakes her head, a mischievous twinkle in her eyes. "What's the point in being Derek's girlfriend if I can't borrow the Hale Family's private plane every once in a while?"

Isaac doesn't bother to bite back his laughter. "Is that the only way you could think of to get all of your guns and junk here?"

Wrinkling her nose, Braeden retorts, "Hey, someone had to come and save your collective behinds and I decided that it was going to be me." The smile that follows next is one that is nearly frightening with its coolness. "Tamsin wanted a hunt and that's what she was going to get."

Noting the past tense, Isaac interrupted. "Is she --?"

"Dead," Braeden says with a shake of her head and a sullen sigh. "I wish. I chased her through the woods around her property for half the freaking night and was _this_ close to ending her when she fell down into a ravine."

" _No_!" Isaac says on an exhale.

"Oh yes," Braeden confirmed. "Woman broke nearly every single bone in her body and'll be in a body cast for the better part of the next few months. No one gives a damn, of course, the woman was evil, but it would've been nice to off her before Argent and his crew comes through and ships her off to the facility in Lozère."

Isaac shudders at the memory of the original Argent stronghold in the place that used to be Gévaudan and the things that he'd seen when Chris Argent had taken him to France after Allison had gotten so terribly injured. He'd gone along because someone needed to keep an eye on the man while Allison recovered, but the things that he saw there were… frightening at the very least.

"I've been there," Isaac says, not so helpfully. "Tamsin won't like it, being surrounded by werewolves and other supernaturals. Hell, she might not even last that long."

Braeden shakes her head. "No, but maybe that's the point, I --"

Whatever is supposed to come next in Braeden's sentence, Isaac will never know because Scott and Stiles choose that moment to barrel in with their arms full of shopping bags from various fast food restaurants in the nearby area.

"If she ever gets loose though," Braeden says after touching Isaac's arm to pull his attention away from the food that his friends have brought in. "I'll put a bullet in between her eyes myself. Argent's facility is supposed to be one of the best in the world and the safest. If she gets out, all bets are off. I won't let her hurt anyone again."

Despite the fact that she's so obviously talking about killing someone right in front of Scott, no one says anything. In fact, where Scott just looks resigned to hearing about the incident on the news, Stiles actually looks excited and more than a little bit pleased with himself.

Isaac feels his face warm and he just knows that Scott can scent the salt of tears forming in his eyes. He won't let them fall. No. Isaac doesn't cry unless he absolutely can't help it. But the thought is there.

"Thank you, Braeden," he mumbles.

"Anything for my favorite werewolf," she says smoothly, ignoring the way that Scott yelps in the middle of her sentence. Braeden pats Isaac's arm and then nudges him in the direction of the food. "Now please eat something so that we can work on getting you back to Beacon Hills before Derek decides that he needs get off the plane to hunt down the nearest rare bookseller."

Scott blinks at Isaac over Braeden's head. "You brought Derek?"

"Duh," Braeden says with a roll of her honey-brown eyes. "I'm not just going to steal his plane without letting him come along for the ride. He helped us with the tracking and getting Tamsin into the van, but once we had her locked down in that Druid hospital, he ditched me." Braeden grins. "I think he just wanted to worry about you three in private and maybe plan out Tamsin's death if she manages to break out of the facility sooner than we thought. You know how he gets."

Out of everyone in their pack, Derek was still the hardest to understand. Everything about him was different. He'd grown up as a werewolf and a pack that couldn't have been farther from the way that Scott runs his now. He'd lived through more horrible things by fifteen than most people did their entire lives.

And he was still evolving.

"I still can't get over that he's the same guy that used to growl at me all the time," Isaac muses, his mind already half-focused on the smell of melting cheese and salami. "He's worried about _us_?"

Stiles snorts as he passes a bag of grocery store sandwiches to Isaac.

"He still growls at _me_ ," he mutters.

Braeden shakes her head, reaching up so that she can ruffle Stiles and Isaac's hair at the same time. "Just think of it as his way of showing that he cares," she says. "If he didn't growl, he wouldn't be Derek."

Gently, as if she's worried about hurting him, Braeden guides Isaac over to the small dining room table and waits for him to sit down before she does as well. Scott sits down directly across from Isaac and Stiles sits next to him, looking down at a salad that certainly has seen better days.

"I don't know _why_ I asked you to pick me up a salad," Stiles grumbles half-heartedly, jabbing at the wilted green leaves with the tines of his fork. "Next time, just swing by McDonald's and pick up something that'd make my dad jealous if he saw me eating it."

Scott's answering laughter makes Stiles stick his tongue out.

"You _can_ share my food," Scott points out as he empties his own bag of food out onto the table. He's got some of the same kinds of sandwiches that Isaac does, but also some pastries in a see-through bag that Isaac doesn't recognize. "Just not the stuff in that little bag. I had a craving for papas rellenas and I am _not_ dealing with your weird mashed potato hate."

Beside Isaac, Braeden perks up.

"You got papas rellenas?" Braeden asks, making a grab for the bag sitting in front of Scott. She snags it with the tip of her index finger and pulls it over the table towards her. Peeking inside of the bag, Braeden's eyes widen. "And they smell _good_."

Scott grins, looking smugger than he has any right to be.

"See," Scott says with a triumphant smirk directed Stiles' way. "This is why Braeden is my favorite."

Snorting, Isaac can't stop himself from interjecting. "Even though she said that _I'm_ her favorite werewolf?"

"Let's not talk about that," Scott says in a mock-serious tone that quickly shifts to a wide smile. "I'm still holding out that she'll change her mind on that one."

%MCEPASTEBIN%

**Author's Note:**

> I chose to introduce Braeden to the story and push the Tamsin stuff offscreen because I didn't want Isaac to have to deal with anything other than healing and being surrounded by friends. I adore Braeden as a character and since she's one of the most ruthless good guys in the series, I thought she'd be a perfect fit for taking out Tamsin. Once I get a bit more free time, there _will_ be a little story directly about Tamsin's capture at the hands of Braeden/Derek and Derek's weird thing about antique books but this story was supposed to focus on friendship, you know. 
> 
> Thank you all for reading!


End file.
